GMay, this is the 9th Circus, so it's not just a CA thing, the entire West Coast suffers under those guys (and gals.)

In this case, however, they may not be wrong, and the fault is in the ADA itself. With respect to which, P. J. O'Rourke said pretty much all that needed to be said in Parliament of Whores, way back in '91.

I'm aware of the jurisdiction. But the suit came from California and when you take into account all the other onerous and frivolous regulations on CA business owners (the latest regulations on eggs come to mind) must account for - not to mention their obscene tax burdens - the state's imminent demise is no big shocker.

I once worked on a project with ticket dispensing machines. One of my tasks was to implement ADA support for the blind. Given the costs, I proposed that the blind just be given free tickets. Turns out the customer had proposed the same thing before I got involved. The lawyers said no.

This opinion (which I have not read owing to its length) was written by Judge Daniel M. Friedman, who is on the Federal Circuit, not the Ninth Circuit, and who was sitting on this particular panel by designation (i.e. the Ninth Circuit borrowed him from the Federal Circuit for a few cases, of which this was one). So it's not all a Ninth Circuit production.

Also of note is that lawyer representing Chipotle, in a valiant but losing effort, was one John F. Scalia.

Several years ago, in Virginia, the court said that the state had to lower all the emergency call boxes because they were too high for wheelchair bound drivers to reach. Someone actually ahd the sense to offer all such folks (there aren't really very many) free prepaid cell phones to keep in their vans.Those bringing the suit gratefully accepted and for very little cost, fairness was served.

However, emergency callboxes are an essential service. Seeing the kitchen is not. Do I have a right for special seating in the movies because I am short? How about my 4 foot ten inch daughter? The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Most ADA lawsuits are bullshit. This one being no different. It's only news because it hits a bigger food chain. The problem is, is that if Chipotle lowers their food counters any more, to serve the wheelchair bound, then OSHA might come after them for improper working surface heights. And if you don't think that is beyond the obscene, then you read it here first. They can't win.

It's years ago now, the City Council was debating whether to buy city busses with handicap lifts or to provide free on-call transportation with handicap vans, there was an especially loud and vociferous young lady in a wheel chair insisting that they buy the busses regardless of cost. A City Councilor asked her how she got around now, and she answered that she never used public transportation as she had her own van with handicap lift. He then asked, if that was so, why did she care? And she said it was her civil rights for the City to have busses available even if she had no intention of ever riding on one!

there may have been concerns that the ADA may be too vague or too costly, or may lead endlessly to litigation. But I want to reassure you right now that my administration and the United States Congress have carefully crafted this Act. We've all been determined to ensure that it gives flexibility, particularly in terms of the timetable of implementation; and we've been committed to containing the costs that may be incurred

The ADA requirements for sidewalk handicap ramps at street intersections are physically impossible to implement if the intersecting streets have much slope to them, so the current system here is that the contractor calls City Hall when he has a street corner graded and ready to construct the ramp, and a joint delegation from the Public Works Dept. and "the handicapped community" is supposed to go out to inspect the work and see if he has done "all that can be done" to comply with the act.In practice, "the handicapped community" has not proved all that interested, so usually an "observer" from PWD does the inspection by himself.

How do you define a handicap? I know the usual ones, like blindness, wheelchair-bound, etc. But what about phobias? mental illness?

In some instances, the ADA is overreach. There's small shops & businesses here where their parking lot is small to begin with, so half their parking space is handicap parking, because they have to have at least two parking places as handicap spaces.

So is there someone, somewhere, suing to make all traffic lights in the USA have to be changed out because they're color blind?

How do professional (or local) sports get away with the fact that wheelchair bound athletes can't compete on the field like non-disabled people? Is there an exception in the law for them?

Remember that case where a golfer with a disability that made it painful to walk, sued under ADA to make the PGA let him play using a golf cart? All the other golfers had to walk, as required by the rules.

In a restaurant, the least [last] thing you want to see is the kitchen.

No kidding!! I once got a glimpse into the kitchen in a chinese restaurant in SF that I liked to go to late at night when I got off work (10 pm). It almost turned me off of chinese food for quite some time.

Good thing I have a strong stomach and firmly believe in the 5 second rule.

So is there someone, somewhere, suing to make all traffic lights in the USA have to be changed out because they're color blind?

I think traffic lights are standardized now for this very reason.

In the 1950's my mother, who was color blind, was in an auto accident. In Texas the green is on the top and red on the bottom. When we moved to California the traffic lights are reversed and no one thought to tell her that. (DOH!!!) She could only see the light was on or off...not what color it was and went through the red light.

This is also why we have the walking man/stop-hand signals at cross walks AND the beeping or chirping sound. Color blind can't see the colors and blind people can't see at all. Dunno what the next step will be for the Helen Keller types. Maybe airlifts across the street?

In addition to DBQ's comments, "Green" is actually a "Green/Blue" hue to help in distinction, and yes, traffic lights are fairly standardized now. Where they are not, is usually because of gradual improvements such as switch to LED lights.

I have a first-hand account that illustrates this entitled attitude well.

I worked for an agency serving the developmentally disabled (vocational services) for a decade. The Executive Assistant, a close friend of mine, owned a massive collection of VHS movies (this was pre-DVD) as her husband worked for Warner Brothers. This woman, out of the kindness of her heart, hauled about 100+ of her tapes to work on a weekend, and set up an internal, free "video store" for the staff of the agency - complete with a simple database and a system for signing out the movies, at no charge. It was a huge hit as everybody pretty much lived from paycheck to paycheck - thus even a free movie rental was welcome.

One of our staff, a young deaf woman, borrowed a few movies one day. The next day, she shows up at the executive assistant's desk, signing wildly - clearly very upset. Apparently, she was distraught at the fact that the movie she "rented" did not have close captioning for the deaf! She threatened the agency (a non profit barely scraping by) with an ADA lawsuit! Think about the level of gall you have to have to complain about a video that you borrowed from a casual acquaintance. Its amazing how hard people will work to classify themselves as victims.

I had a front row seat to this woman's meltdown over this ridiculous, non-issue. Luckily, the Executive Director talked some sense into her, and the lawsuit never materialized.

@former, the rules for professional golf tournaments are different, as I suspect you know. You're in a really snarky mood today, even worse than normal.

As I recollect it, the judges had to decide whether the athleticism necessary to walk the 18 holes outweighed the upper body and hip strength to swing a golf club with authority coupled with steady nerves on the putting green. I thought at the time that the ruling was fair, but wrong. Any professional sport should be able to set its own rules without interference from legal authorities.

Signing that monstrosity is just about the most indefensible thing GHWB did. Imagine taking the position that government would take the letter of the law and always interpret in the least invasive way possible...

Any professional sport should be able to set its own rules without interference from legal authorities.

But, as I've already pointed out, walking the course is not a fundamental part of playing the game of golf, neither as played by the vast majority of golfers, nor as a part of the athletic competition. It is tangential.

Imagine the PGA enacted a similarly tangential rule, finding that because of the danger of sun exposure inherent to the game of golf -- melanoma, etc. -- they decide that all players have to have as much skin pigment as Lee Trevino. Would that be fair to the melanin-challenged Phil Mickelson?

In my town, the bus authority has small vans that would give door-to-door service to the handicapped for the same fee as the bus fare. Some activists got involved and demanded that handicapped enabled buses be purchased (which cost 5x as much as regular buses.) The activists also argued that the door-to-door service was condescending. The bus authority caved and canceled the door-to-door service and spent a shit-load of money on the more expensive buses (even for the routes with no documented riders who needed the more sophisticated buses.) I've long wondered how many handicapped people were totally pissed off at the activists over that.

"Leland said...Where they are not, is usually because of gradual improvements such as switch to LED lights."

Oh, have you not heard? LED street lights do not produce enough heat to effectively melt the snow that settles on and obscures them during winter in northern climes...making them either extremely dangerous or very costly for cities that install them and must pay to have the snow manually removed.

It seems silly to install lights that throw off enormous waste heat 24/7 just so that waste heat can be used to melt snow on the few days of the year when it would otherwise block the traffic lights.

That might make sense in certain particularly snowy areas, but for the most part it seems like a problem that would be better solved by installing a simple wire heater in the light cover that kicks in at temperatures below, say, 40 degrees. It should still pay for itself in fairly short order; LEDs are enormously energy-efficient.

But, as I've already pointed out, walking the course is not a fundamental part of playing the game of golf

Yes, you did point that out. You forgot to explain why it is relevant that walking isn't a "a fundamental part of playing the game of golf". The closest you've come is invoking "fairness" -- as if the US government had any business regulating how fair athletic contests are.

Imagine the PGA enacted a similarly tangential rule, finding that because of the danger of sun exposure inherent to the game of golf -- melanoma, etc. -- they decide that all players have to have as much skin pigment as Lee Trevino. Would that be fair to the melanin-challenged Phil Mickelson?

Yes, it would be fair. It would also be stupid; if the PGA implemented that rule, the PGA would collapse and be replaced by a more sensible organization.

The Americans with Disabilities Act has been a very expensive failure.

Its original goal was to increase participation of people with disabilities in the work environment and the claim was that compliance with this act by employers and businesses would be insignificant.

Today, the employment rate of people with disabilities is virtually unchanged from before adoption and the expense of compliance by courts who have interpreted "reasonable accomodation" to have no real financial limit has driven businesses to extinction.

This is a prime example of what is wrong with Congress and our courts.

There is a strong "see me roar" need for attention for their disabilities. If that was all I could do, then maybe I would seek attention by wailing about being a victim until I had scewed up life for those without a handicap. It is bragging rights.

The handicapped and their keepers use the ADA as their form of bragging rights for forcing huge sacrifices to be made for their victim status. The law takes the position that it is better to screw up life for the great majority before causing any handicapped person to feel bad. Of course the new Constitutional doctrine that no law is rational if based upon a religious/moral belief should gut the ADA as soon as anyone wants to bring the case.